Does public investment influence re-election? An empirical study of the municipalities of the state of Espírito Santo

Abstract

The economic literature has discussed the effects of public spending on the probability of re-election, pointing out that voters tend to evaluate the performance of politics based on the pre-election period (political myopia). In this context, this study investigates the influence of public investments on the re-election of municipal mayors in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, between 2001 and 2012. Using Logistic regression, we find that voters from the State of Espírito Santo, in general, reward the mayors who promote increments related to public investment in the period surrounding the elections, which is consistent with results in the political cycles and electoral behavior literature, although no empirical evidence was found that those voters are conservative in a fiscal perspective.

Keywords:
political cycles; public choice; public investment; regional elections.